The Responsibility Game

An article in the WSJ about the Marine response to the Miramar Hornet crash which killed several civilians, praising the Corps for "taking responsibility" and canning several mid-level officers.

Yes, very impressive -- from the outside. Now allow me to explain the workings of the military machine from the other side of the curtain.

I'll start this off by saying that I have deepest sympathy for the loss suffered by the innocent victims in this tragedy. It was a tragedy in the truest sense of the word -- a bad result brought on by bad decisions. But the bad decisions were not made where the press releases say they were. I don't blame the author of the article; she simply lacks the experience to see through the smoke. I do not suffer from that handicap.

It’s all well and good to say the Corps "took blame," but I’ve seen this shell game in operation from a firsthand perspective. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that when the squadron commander tried to deadline that Hornet, the higher-ups told him "if it'll fly, then keep flying it."

The Corps is under-supplied, under-staffed and under-budgeted. Most of the equipment on the Marine Corps books, from canteens to fighter planes, is second- or third-hand and very often years past the recommended service life.* Deadlining or deep-sixing a piece of equipment for anything less than catastrophic failure is strongly frowned upon by the leadership. All of this stems from the fact that the Corps has to fight for scraps from the Navy every year, (for those not aware, the Marine Corps is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Navy), and every year the Navy finds new ways to squeeze a little harder, as they are are in turn squeezed by Congress.

Then something like this happens, and everyone praises the "responsibility" of the Marines. Do you really think those commanders and flight crew would have put that bird in the air, knowing its current state of disrepair, if they'd had a real choice in the matter? The pilot has to get his hours and the squadron has to meet readiness standards. Woe unto the squadron commander who does not have his paperwork in order, with all the proper boxes checked, at the end of the training cycle.

So, you try to get spare parts and maintenance time. You try to get it deadlined, lacking spare parts. But in the end, if the plane will fly, then the plane flies. The pilot logs his hours and the boxes get checked. The uniformed bureaucrats in the Pentagon are happy. Meanwhile, as the colonel in the middle, you had to make a judgment call to fly that aircraft. Most of the time, the dice come up in your favor.

But every so often you crap out.

Sure, the pilot made some errors in judgment; I challenge you to put yourself in a crashing plane with warning sirens going off all around you, systems suffering cascade failures, while a dozen people on the radio give you "options," and see how effective your decision-making process remains.

I’d be far more impressed with this so-called show of responsibility if a few congressman were hatcheted alongside the colonels and majors. But oh no -- they're elected officials. Can't touch them. It wouldn't hurt to throw a few desk-jockey admirals and generals in Washington to the wolves, either. They're politicians in all but name.

That "responsibility" isn't nearly so shiny now, is it?

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(Hat-tip to Vizigoth)

* - A little more "behind the curtain" insight. My best friend Curtis from childhood ended up with a doctorate in aerospace engineering. (He was the good student; I was... not.) For many years he was the lead change engineer at Pensacola NAS for the EA-6B Prowler, later converting to Hornets. His wife was CE lead on the Tomcats. (He is now the construction oversight engineer for the F-35 program, by the way.)

He once told me that after only a few years of service, most combat planes are "flying junk heaps, primarily held together with spit and prayer," (his words). The electronic systems have been repaired, re-routed, bypassed, and jury-rigged until the team who originally designed the thing wouldn't even recognize it. The airframe has been stressed so many times that an x-ray of a structural member looks like a quilt pattern. You don't even want to know how many times the engines have been rebuilt. You know that Tomcat which Tom Cruise made famous? Curtis said he'd have greater confidence in a Cessna 150.

As with "responsibility," the apparent shininess ain't the whole story.